Contractor (50 page)

was public knowledge that a big attack was

coming. The Ivory Dawn was working hard

to help everyone and explain the situation as

well as they could. The United States had

reacted stoically enough. Some countries

hadn’t reacted at all. Still others had fallen

into perpetual turmoil.

He didn’t really know New York at all,

so he saved several pictures to his cellphone

from the internet while her service was still

active. He took maps of the city at large, the

five boroughs, and the major highways. He

studied them often, trying to come up with

theories on how the Vorid might attack, how

the Dawn would arrange a defense. He kept

a canteen that he could clip on his belt filled

and ready to go with the rest of his armor. It

wasn’t much, but at least he was doing

something.

Chapter Eleven

New York

Six days passed, and the Vorid came.

And when they came, the sky was blue, and

the sun was shining. No more pretenses.

The sensation was the same—something

dark, hard, and sharp, cutting through him.

Cold iron pressed on his back. Daniel’s

spine shivered. He left his tent and looked

into the sky.

There was the jagged red portal—that

was the same—but what came through were

not the scattered acorns of extractors

dropping to the ground, nor the black pen-

line of a towering column. Dropping through

the gap was a craft that looked like a cross

between a floating black fortress and a

spaceship. It probably was exactly that. It

paused in midair, a threatening gothic spike

sitting below the clouds.

The colorless dome spread from the

portal. It was bigger even than the one that

had been put in place over Boston. As it

grew, tinier portals cracked the sky like

blisters on the surface of infected skin. The

great columns fell like rain. The floating

castle dropped a dozen pillars of its own.

Their height dwarfed the skyline of the city.

All around him, no one had noticed. No

one looked up from their conversations.

The color of the world drained away.

The fires went still, the smoke stopped

drifting. Tents rippled by the wind froze in

place. The campsite hung in time like a black

and white photograph in a history book.

Daniel rushed into his tent. His fingers

fumbled over the straps of his armor as he

clasped it on himself. He gave his mace a

few test swings to settle his hands, then

jumped into the sky and rocketed toward the

city, pushing himself off his sigils. Below, a

line of cars roared down the road. He could

sense it had mages in it, the ones that had

been staffing the camp. He flashed over them

unnoticed.

The city loomed below. He slowed his

pace, and then stopped. With just a bit of

power, he stood in midair, suspended on a

foggy gold cushion.

Rachel was close to Eleanor and Henry,

probably well-protected. At the moment,

trying to find her was a waste of time. There

were thousands of people behind him that

were trapped defenseless inside the Vorid

shield, and with his speed, he was definitely

a first responder. He should distract the

enemy forces while the magicians began

whatever they had planned.

He thought back to Boston. The overseer

had pretty much been running the column;

when it died, so did all the extractors under

its command. It was like Rachel’s golem

magic, just on an industrial scale. If he

kicked out the foundation by killing

overseers, their assault should falter. Even if

his theory was crap, the more of them that

were dead, the better.

Daniel made for the closest column. In a

minute, he’d reached its side. He stopped

himself up in the air, standing within arm’s

reach of the top of the pillar.

He looked down. It was a dizzying

view—tiny streets and blocks sat far below.

The column’s base had crushed straight

through the side of the building. He was still

far outside the downtown skyscrapers, in the

fields of apartments and small businesses

that was the majority of the city.

He put a little power into it and swung

his weapon. It rebounded off the black steel

a metallic ping. His hands stung a bit, but

he’d made a small dent.

Just as he was about to go for a stronger

hit, his senses alerted him to a burst of

magic. Two grey orbs were flying up toward

him. He jumped off his sigil, planted his feet

on the column, and pushed into open air. The

shots whizzed by.

A storm of orbs followed him. Daniel

jumped and twisted like a skydiver dodging

anti-aircraft fire. Each orb trailed by with an

ugly roar as it ate through the air to get to

him. He put distance between himself and the

column to give himself more time to react.

The attacks stopped.

Daniel set down a few blocks away.

The street was silent. He passed a striped cat

that was paused mid-stride. Loose paper

blowing across the street was caught half

curled. He crept between brick buildings and

under rusty fire escapes, checking his

corners before he dashed past openings.

Ahead, he could see where the column

had struck ground. The part of the building it

hadn’t crushed was caught in time, forever

about to collapse. He crouched behind a

dumpster and peered around the corner. The

overseer was floating just above the

cylindrical housing that spat out the

extractors. Ten grey orbs hovered around it,

resting on their magic sigils, ready to fire. Its

sharp face scanned the sky.

Daniel took a long breath.

He poured everything he had into the

jump. He pushed off so hard the asphalt

rippled and cracked under his feet. In a

blink, he was in its face, slamming his mace

straight into its neck.

Its black shield came up. Daniel’s strike

blew it apart, but it deflected him wide. The

overseer went flying, but it righted itself.

Orbs fired back in Daniel’s direction.

Daniel was already behind it. He swung.

His mace crunched into the back of its head.

The overseer smashed into the ground.

Daniel let himself fall, landed on it with his

feet, and pummeled it. With it pinned below

him and the street, he had all the advantage

he needed. He beat it until he was sure it

wouldn’t move again.

He felt the surge as he absorbed its soul.

He stepped back. Unlike the spawn, and the

extractors, which were magical constructs,

the overseers didn’t disintegrate when he

killed them. The broken body of the creature

lay on the ground, head twisted back, legs

bent in a way they shouldn’t have been. Its

guts were shredded across the sidewalk.

Daniel swallowed hard to keep his

stomach steady. He trudged back into the

alley and rubbed his eyes, letting the nausea

fade.

After he’d recovered, he unscrewed his

canteen. He rinsed his mouth, spat, then took

a few sips. He shouldn’t feel bad about it.

He shouldn’t care about things that wanted to

suck out their souls.

He’d basically just snuck up on someone

and beat them to death with a club. You

couldn’t get much more violently barbaric

than that.

He secured his canteen on his hip and

launched onto a rooftop to pinpoint his next

target. He needn’t have bothered. Four

overseers were flying straight for him from

their fortress.

Daniel frowned. To be alerted that fast,

they had some kind of communication

system. That meant there was a possibility he

could be tracked and pursued. He wasn’t

sure about his chances four-on-one.

Daniel hid his presence and slipped into

an apartment. His senses told him the

building was empty. Everyone had been

moved out to the suburbs.

He peered out between the blinds of a

window. The overseers had found the body

of their friend. Something seemed to pass

between them. One stayed at the base of the

pillar, and the others spread out, searching.

Daniel moved to another window to take

a peek at the fortress. It hadn’t moved. With

all the columns it had dropped, it looked like

a black glacier on stilts, perched above the

Manhattan skyline.

Something was happening. His

improved eyesight could just make out black

flecks leaving the fortress. Fighters departing

from the mothership. The new development

was not encouraging.

The search for him continued. Daniel

watched the three overseers move further

away with his senses. Their friend back at

the column was still alert, inspecting the

corners of the streets as well as the air

around his head. Daniel hunkered down.

After a good ten minutes, he tiptoed

down to the door of the apartment. The last

Vorid was pacing. Its friends were relatively

distant, still combing through the streets.

When it looked away, Daniel sprang

from hiding. His speed blasted him toward

his target as his mace came up. The black

shield automatically came to its defense.

This time, his aim was straight, and he

wasn’t deflected. His blow carried through

the wall of magic and crunched into the

Vorid’s back.

The blow threw it against the column. It

hit the ground dead. Daniel looked away and

focused on scrying even as he absorbed his

fallen foe. The three overseers were already

flying back. He leapt straight for the closest.

Grey orbs darted toward him, but he’d

just eaten his third overseer. The matter-

erasing cannonballs seemed to crawl. He

bounced around them, leaping off his sigils,

and intercepted the Vorid’s face with the end

of his club. Their opposing speeds combined

to take its head off its shoulders.

The last two overseers combined their

fire. The spheres bore down on him in a wall

of grey hail.

Daniel rode the surge of his last kill and

shoved his power out to maximum. His arms

and legs glowed like burning magnesium.

The grey spheres seemed to lose

momentum. Instead of hail, they were

snowflakes, drifting by. He was confused for

a moment. It hit him—they hadn’t slowed

down. He’d sped up. He bounded around the

magic.

The Vorid sent more waves of the stuff,

desperately trying to slow him down. There

were too many gaps. They were too slow.

The first overseer stopped trying to hit

him and put up its shield. Daniel’s first

swipe broke it. The follow-up backhand sent

it flying down to the asphalt. He couldn’t

follow it while the other was still shooting.

Daniel redirected and stopped above the

head of its friend. He swung. The attack

wasn’t enough to break the shield outright,

but the force pushed the Vorid to the ground.

Daniel plummeted after it.

They hit the street, the Vorid on its back,

Daniel standing above it. Daniel struck.

White sparks crackled and flashed against

black energy. The shield buckled.

A third blow shattered the barrier. His

final attack blew the creature in half. His

mace burned a foot deep into the cement and

stuck there.

Daniel’s throat lurched. Dark green

blood was splattered over his shoes and up

his jeans. The black mist of a stolen soul

sunk into him.

A grey sphere bigger than he was came

in from the side. Daniel had to duck away

before he had a chance to dislodge his

weapon from the ground. The orb ate away

his mace and half the street along with it.

Daniel skipped around the column and

suppressed his power back down to nothing.

He felt the overseer pause. It drifted over the

cylinder, eyes shifting, orbs poised around it,

shield ready. Daniel ducked into the nearest

building.

It was a little sporting goods store,

packed to the rafters with helmets, gloves,

and shoes. His eyes hunted for a weapon. He

briefly considered a hockey stick.

His gaze fell on a baseball bat. He

snatched it off the rack and choked up for a

test swing. It felt good. Solid.

He glanced out the shop window. The

overseer was almost straight above him. He

slipped out the door.

Daniel bent his legs. He sprung up

directly in front of it. It recoiled in surprise,

then fired everything it had. Daniel pushed

left, stopped himself on a sigil, and

rebounded right. Every shot was wasted.

Already injured by his earlier attack, its

black shield was a weak piece of paper. He

extended his arms in a fully extended swing.

Unfortunately for his enemy, the column

was in the way. There was a sickening snap

as it hit the black steel. Its corpse slid to the